A day after Portland city councilors faced questionsover whether their tour of Fort Gorges on Monday counted as city meeting, the city pledged to post public notices of all gatherings of councilors on the city website. There was no advance public notice of the tour, which seven of the nine councilors attended. A city spokeswoman maintained none was necessary, because no business affecting citizens was conducted, nor were any Fort Gorges-related actions facing the council.

Celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson spoke to the BDN’s Nick McCrea ahead of his Sept. 27 talk at Portland’s Merrill Auditorium. Tyson said Maine is “secretly beautiful,” and pondered whether humans can truly get to the bottom of many mysteries of the universe. “I often wonder if we’re just too stupid to figure out some of these things we’ve observed,” he told Nick.